"It was so crude," she said scornfully, "so cheap and confidence-trickish. A miserable million francs—twenty thousand pounds. Apart from the fact that your name would be mud in London if it were known that you had robbed a girl——"
"There's no question of robbery," he said hotly, "I tell you Valdau is a certainty for the Prix."
"It would not be a certainty if her money were on," said Jean dryly. "It would finish an artistic second and you would be full of apologies, and poor Lydia would be a million francs to the bad. No, Marcus, that is cheap."
"I'm nearly broke," he said shortly.
He made no disguise of his profession, nor of his nefarious plan.
Between the two there was a queer kind of camaraderie. Though he may not have been privy to the more tremendous of her crimes, yet he seemed to accept her as one of those who lived on the frontiers of illegality.
"I was thinking about you, as you sat there telling her the story," said Jean thoughtfully. "Marcus, why don't you marry her?"
He stopped in his stride and looked down at the girl.
"Marry her, Jean; are you mad? She wouldn't marry me."
"Why not?" she asked. "Of course she'd marry you, you silly fool, if you went the right way about it."